April 2007

The last time Screen Play won a trophy, it was one of those bittersweet encouragement awards: "Best Clubman" at my local cricket club. The only award you're likely to win when your bowling average comfortably exceeds your batting average.

It's therefore very pleasing to now be the owner of a hefty bronze "Lizzie" after picking up the Best Gaming Journalist gong at Friday night's Sun Microsystems IT Journalism Awards.

Now in their fifth year, the Lizzies have become Australia's most prestigious awards in technology media, so it's certainly a gratifying accolade.

Congratulations also to Atomic, which won Best Gaming Title and Best Production Team, and The Age/SMH's technology writer Ashes Moses, who won a well-deserved Lizzie for Best Technology Article.

The father of PlayStation, Ken Kutaragi, last week announced his intention to retire from his executive role at Sony Computer Entertainment.

Today Screen Play pays tribute to a man who has made one of the most significant impacts on the video games industry in its 30-year history.

Kutaragi joined Sony Corporation in 1975. After working on digital signal processing at Sony labs, he headed a five-man team developing a CD-ROM add-on for the Super Nintendo, a project that would eventually lead to the release of the PlayStation console in 1994.

While he could often be bafflingly oblique and PS3's uncertain fate has prompted some analysts to suggest he was pushed out, Ken Kutaragi is a unique visionary who changed the games industry forever. Today Screen Play pays tribute by looking at the machine that started it all - Kutaragi's first "baby", the original PlayStation console.

The Australian games development industry is stepping up its campaign to get the same tax breaks and government funding schemes as the local film industry.

Studio heads from Victorian developers like Tantalus, Torus and IR Gurus pleaded their case on the ABC's 7.30 Report last night, suggesting the only thing holding back the Australian games industry is a lack of investment funds.

More money would enable studios to work on lucrative original games rather than "work for hire" contracts for overseas publishers.

Most within the Australian games development business believe the industry is at the crossroads.

When Australia's current classification system was devised in 1994, there was little research into the effects of interactive games upon players, so censorship ministers directed the Office of Film and Literature Classification to uphold games to a higher standard than film.

For at least the last 15 years, the consensus among researchers, policy makers and parents has been that a video game's interactive nature heightens the impact of any material viewed.

Typically, the OFLC has been much stricter on violence, sex, language and drug use when applying ratings to games compared to films.

However, the British Board of Film Classification is set to have a radically different policy to Australia's censors after extensive new research showed that interactivity might actually lessen the effect of violence upon young players.

Screen Play has previously looked at gaming cliches like exploding barrels and reluctant (and amnesiac) heroes, but this item on game name stereotypes tickled my fancy.

GameSetWatch's competition came up with names like WWII: World War II, Ubisoft's Tom Clancy's Call Of Duty: Revenge Of Duty and Pauly Shore's XTREME Nude Wakeboarding II: The Awakening, but I'm sure Screen Play readers can come up with some suggestions just as good.

Screen Play's entries for stereotypical game names would include:

- EA Sports Big Bossaball 2007 featuring Ricky Martin

- Bloodstorm Tempest: The Thousand and One Year War

- The History Channel presents Great Battles of Broadmeadows II

- TV Cartoon Now Turned Blockbuster Franchise The Movie 4: The Official Video Game

Sony has confirmed the first edition of SingStar on PS3 will include 30 tracks on disc from artists like OutKast, Coldplay, Pussycat Dolls, Razorlight and Wolfmother, plus over 300 songs to download via the SingStore.

The downloadable line-up will include access to the PS2 SingStar back catalogue, and new music will be added every month. PS2 SingStar microphones work with the PS3 version, but wireless mics are "coming soon".

The "My SingStar Online" feature lets users create their own MySpace-style page complete with photos, video and audio files to share with friends. Users can also create their own playlists to suit their mood or audience.

Screen Play is currently conducting research and interviews for an upcoming feature in The Age on music in video games, and I'll naturally be chatting to SingStar Producer Paulina Bozek among many other experts in the field.

Last week Screen Play took some time out of the gaming bunker to visit Melbourne's Everyday Interactive Networks, a talented start-up working on the very promising VastPark.

The official blurb describes VastPark as "a distributed media platform that integrates web, interactive 3D sites and social networking", but many will obviously compare the technology to Second Life or view it as a "3D YouTube".

What budding game developers should find most interesting is that VastPark could be a handy tool for quickly and easily creating mock-ups of game ideas. You can publish 3D content online extremely quickly and you don't have to build from scratch: 3D models can be imported straight from standard industry tools like 3ds Max and Maya.

An early beta version of the creator tool can be downloaded from the official VastPark site. Like Microsoft's XNA Game Studio Express program, anything that lets budding bedroom coders unleash their creativity and break into the industry armed with new ideas is more than welcome.

My mission to get Mrs Screen Play interested in Animal Crossing via a recent DS birthday gift has been a spectacular success, but it has had an unfortunate side-effect: I'm also hooked all over again.

It's a rare game that lures you in again after you have drunk all you can from it (or vowed to never touch it again) so Screen Play is keen to hear what games in your collection have repeatedly sucked you in.

Or are there any games on your shelf that you dare not touch for fear of losing days and weeks of your life all over again?

Australia's acclaimed Eminence symphony orchestra kick off their A Night in Fantasia 2007 series of concerts tomorrow, with many celebrated Japanese composers in attendance.

Screen Play caught up with Hitoshi Sakimoto, composer of Final Fantasy XII and Final Fantasy Tactics, on the eve of the Sydney and Melbourne concerts to talk about the growing importance of music in games.

Sakimoto has been "a computer, games and music geek" for as long as he can remember. Composing game soundtracks has allowed him to combine his greatest passions, yet even he still marvels at how his work can transcend language and cultural barriers, touching players from all around the world.

Click below for the interview, and don't forget to book your tickets for the concerts here. Eminence will perform music from games including Super Mario Brothers, Kingdom Hearts, Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy, World of Warcraft, Shadow of the Colossus, Tales of Legendia, Xenosaga, Chrono Cross, Soul Calibur and Tekken.

Reuters recently suggested that owning Guitar Hero is a sure-fire way of remaining single, and could even threaten the future of any existing relationship.

The article prompted Screen Play to think that there must be 100 more repulsive gaming items guaranteed to provoke far more antipathy from the fairer sex than a plastic guitar, especially when Guitar Hero is such infectious good fun.

Feel free to nominate your own inclusions for Screen Play's list below of 100 gaming items guaranteed to cramp your style, or lodge a protest at one of my suggestions.

With the increasingly high cost of developing "next-generation" games for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii, and a clear leader in the fiercely competitive three-way tussle yet to emerge, most game publishers are hedging their bets and bringing their biggest games to as many platforms as possible.

But while exclusive games might not be as numerous as in previous generations, they remain absolutely crucial in differentiating each console and driving hardware adoption.

Kudos to long-running American site Gaming Target, which has been tracking all of the console exclusives for the new consoles since last October so gamers can assess the relative strengths of each platform.

Their Exclusive Arms Race makes fascinating reading, but Screen Play thought it currently lacks a key ingredient - the assessment of a game's quality. Obviously having hundreds of exclusive games on your platform is of little benefit if they are all dire, so I set about trying to rate all the exclusives to give a more meaningful comparison.

Following a name change, the establishment of new games development studios and a focus on establishing original interactive properties, Disney Interactive Studios has bold plans for growth.

Screen Play recently spoke with Thierry Braille, Vice President and Managing Director of Europe, Middle East, Australia, and Latin America about how the house of the mouse plans to become a major player in the interactive business.

Pleasingly, Mr Braille repeatedly emphasises that Disney's focus in the interactive realm is on quality and innovation rather than marketing budgets and merchandising.

The interview below also explores topics like the growing synergies between movies and games, how to develop original games, the creation of new DS title Spectrobes, the differences between Japanese and Western sensibilities, the resurrection of Turok, and the challenges of next-generation development.

Wired's Clive Thompson wrote a good piece this week about how many long-time gamers are now becoming parents and having to judge what is appropriate for their own kids (rather than simply staunchly refuting any criticism of their hobby).

The article follows new (common-sense) research from our own Swinburne University of Technology which suggests games will only make children more violent if they have a tendency towards aggression.

Screen Play is very strict with my five and six year-old boys. When there are so many wonderful games that contain little or no violence (think Animal Crossing, Rollercoaster Tycoon, Lego Star Wars and Wii Sports) I see no need to expose them to content that they might not yet be mature enough to understand. Why take any risk with your precious kids?

The market for gadgetry like GPS, roof and seat-mounted LCD screens, and in-car DVD players is booming, but Screen Play wonders who will be the first car manufacturer with the nous to offer built-in gaming?

Wii would probably be out of the question, but it would be pretty sweet to be able to choose a built-in PlayStation 3 or an Xbox 360 system for your new family sedan instead of just boring extras like air conditioning and ABS.

Do any Screen Play readers have plans to install their own next-gen system on wheels?

If you spent Easter frustrated at the slow performance of Stalker or Command and Conquer 3 on your aging PC, it might be time to bite the bullet and upgrade, especially with games like Quake Wars and Crysis on the way.

Screen Play today chats to Michael Apthorpe, Technical Manager for AMD Australia, who explains why you should consider an AMD processor in your next gaming rig.

We also cover topics like benchmarking, integrated graphics solutions, physics processors, future trends and the acquisition of graphics giant ATI.

The appearance of venerable puzzler Bust-a-Move on Wii new release schedules prompted Screen Play to wonder whether the game would be one of the most platform-agnostic titles ever.

A quick visit to gaming bible MobyGames suggests the game's bubble-popping action has been enjoyed on over 20 platforms as diverse as Macintosh, Game Gear, 3DO, WonderSwan, Neo Geo, N-Gage, SNES, PlayStation, Game Boy, Saturn and Dreamcast.

But of course, Bust-a-Move must bow down before genre granddaddy Tetris. The classic Russian puzzler would beat Bub and Bob comfortably, having appeared on almost every gaming platform ever released, including Amiga, MSX, NES, TRS-80, Spectrum, Amstrad, Commodore 64, Atari ST and Virtual Boy, plus devices like calculators and portable music players.

Pac-Man and Space Invaders would also be worthy challengers in any contest to find the antithesis of the exclusive. What other gaming hussies can you nominate?

Melbourne-based Screen Play readers are encouraged to attend the next Dissecta event on April 24 to support a worthy cause and hear about one of the most addictive games to come out of Australia in years.

Steve Fawkner and the team from Warlords developer Infinite Interactive are discussing the creation of their fantastic PSP and DS game Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords.

For my money, Rock Band was the most intriguing and exciting announcement of the week, although it certainly isn't far from what some of you were predicting or hoping would be next from the lads at Harmonix.

In other (shamelessly self-promoting) news, Screen Play is again a finalist in the best gaming journalist category in the Sun Microsystems IT Journalism Awards, although James Cottee must be raging favourite to snag his third-straight "Lizzie". Finalists for best gaming title are Atomic, PC Powerplay, Hyper, Official Xbox 360 Magazine, IGN and Gamespot AU.

Video games are the new pop. Australians now spend more money on shooters and sims than hip hop and punk rock. Debate the latest news and trends in interactive entertainment with award-winning games writer Jason Hill.

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